Rich looked over at Collin, who was next to him. Collin's eyes were wide. So he had noticed as well. Rich turned back to front. Hal and Adrian definitely still hadn't noticed. Right now they were talking about boxing.
Rich glanced to his left. Collin was motioning wildly to the floating milk right above Adrian's head. Hal and Adrian were still walking up the stairs, but the milk and cereal was floating in that direction as well, keeping more or less over Adrian's head.
Rich nodded at Collin, indicating that he had indeed noticed his strange roommate's wild gestures. Seeing that he had Rich's attention, Collin made a shrugging gesture, pointed to the milk and then mouthed something. It took Rich a moment to realize he had mouthed, "What should we do?"
Collin began reaching out for the milk, but Rich waved him off. He climbed up another stair and put his hands out in front of him, directed at the milk. Hal and Adrian had stopped on the stairs now, discussing some point. Hal was making sharp jabbing motions in the air, as he was explaining something. Since Rich was directly behind Adrian, he could hear the words, but he was too busy at the moment to really pay attention.
Suddenly Rich had a flash of inspiration. He remembered watching Dan while he was teaching a different student. Dan had taught the student a spell for moving objects nearby. After seeing Erica's fight, Rich thought he could ask Dan about learning new words of power. He hadn't tried the spell Dan had taught him yet, but now was as good a time as any to practice.
He focused his attention on the floating milk in front of him, and began focusing his will, and muttering the words softly. How did they go again?
"Meum…moviste…"
Suddenly Adrian turned around, bowl still in hand.
"Hey, what are you mumbling about back-"
It was at that precise moment that the floating milk chose to suddenly drop out of the air.
Directly onto Adrian's head.
Rich stared in astonishment.
Impossible. He hadn't even completed the spell yet. What was going on? And for that matter, what had started that effect in the first place?
While milk and various flavored fruit loops were dripping from Adrian's head, Rich sensed movement in his peripheral. Collin jumped forward, grabbed the bowl in Adrian's hands, and immediately raised it over his head, turning the bowl so it was upside down. He then immediately donned a big goofy grin.
Rich was impressed. He hadn't thought that Collin had it in him. Not only was that quick thinking, but it was fairly believable, Collin being the ass he was.
Adrian looked over at Collin, confusion and anger vying for position on his face. At this point Hal decided to empty the cup of orange juice he had been carrying over Collin's head.
Adrian and Collin looked at each other. Collin had orange juice dripping off his hair, and colored fruit loops and milk appeared to be oozing out of Adrian's forehead.
There was a moment when everyone just stared, and then the tension broke, and everyone burst out laughing.
After Collin and Adrian had changed, Rich began helping Adrian move in. Actually, at the moment he was just sitting on Collin's bed, idly talking to Adrian about room 104's random food fights, and how nothing that happened today was really unusual.
In actuality, Rich was thinking about what he would tell the rest of his roommates- about how to handle this. Hopefully whatever had happened just now, that thing with the milk, was done happening and they could-
Adrian was brought back to reality by a sharp yell from Adrian.
Adrian was looking at the ceiling, Rich followed his gaze.
The boxing gloves were sitting there, as if glued in place.
"What the HELL is-". The boxing gloves disappeared.
They were back beside Adrian. Rich saw his new roommate take a deep breath, and then turn to get more clothes out of his bag to put into his dresser.
Except now the clothes in his bag were gone.
He looked up.
They were on the ceiling. Adrian reached down to grab the bag to go collect them off the ceiling. His hands came up with nothing. He looked down. His bag was gone.
He stood up, starting to feel agitated. He looked up. His bag and his clothes were on the ceiling.
Adrian fell to his knees, covering his face with his hands.
"Will someone PLEASE tell me WHAT IS GOING ON?" He pleaded, to no one in particular.
Rich got up from the bed, his mind racing for something to say, some way to explain what was happening-
He walked towards Adrian. He was kneeling on the ground, peeking up at the ceiling from between the cracks in his folded hands. Suddenly he dropped his hands to the sides and let himself fall backwards on to his back, taking a deep, healing sigh.
Rich looked up. The ceiling was bare. Adrian's clothes and bag, and everything else were back beside him on the floor, where they should be.
He looked at Rich and laughed, a little shakily. "Apparently my trip had me a little more strung out than I thought-"
At that exact instant, tools from Rich's tool box began marching into the room, in single file. Each of them had tiny feet, and little mouths. And they were all whistling in chorus, what Rich recognized as sounding suspiciously like "The Ants Go Marching".
Adrian turned to watch the spectacle, his face white as a sheet.
Collin came in then, racing around the corner and into the room. He tramped around, laughing maniacally and kicking wrenches and hammers and measuring tape everywhere. Every time Collin kicked one , it would let out a little "Eep!" and then fly across the room and land on the hard floor with a CLANG, instantly turning back into a regular tool.
Rich and Adrian both watched Collin, speechless, as he ran around the room, dispatching various appliances and house tools, seeming to thoroughly enjoy himself.
The tools had dropped their happy song now, and were all running for their "lives". Some of them were even yelling and trying to mount a defense against the crazy rampaging giant.
Hal walked in to investigate the commotion, just as Colin was stepping on a hapless socket wrench that had made a break for the door.
After it was over, all the roommates of room 104 looked at each other, just staring wordlessly for a moment. For some reason Collin looked smug, as if he knew exactly what was going on.
Adrian burst out with "What the HELL? Do you NORMALLY run around slaughtering singing garden tools?"
Collin laughed. "Sorry, I've been playing a little trick on you. See, everything the whole time was me. It's all just some illusions I picked up when I worked at a magic shop. "
Rich and Hal looked at each other. Hal shrugged.
Hal looked at Adrian, and then at Collin. "Um Collin, maybe you, or uh, we should head on down to Vertigo, and maybe we, or uh- you, can explain to him exactly what's been going on."
Adrian looked confused and frightened, as he wildly stared from one roommate to the other. Upon hearing Hal's suggestion though, he nodded his head vigorously.
"Yes. Alcohol. Alcohol sounds good."